Help! Moved to the land of wet

[Jim Koepke]

Pulled up the roots and moved from California to Southern Washington. It seems the humidity is much higher here.

Some of my tools are showing the signs of high humidity.

Anyone have experience with preventing this?

Would a dehumidifier help?

I am not one to oil up my tools.

There are also some that just do not get used often enough. Maybe those should be sold.

jim

[Russ Hauser]

I moved from Ohio to Florida and have the same problem. I first noticed rust forming on the cast iron tables of my stationary tools. I cleaned them with 000 steel wool and applied a couple coats of Minwax furniture wax,and keep the tables covered with old bath towels.

Russ

[Brent Smith]

Hi Jim,

We get some wicked humidity here during the summer months. I find a dehumidifier and desicant packs (Lee Valley sells a few sizes) in closed drawers, cupboards and tool cases do the job fine. I use TopCote on my cast machine surfaces. Keeping the air moving on the really bad days is also a great help.

[David Keller NC]

Jim - I live in North Carolina, and my shop is in a basement. The realtor that sold me the house told me that there's a saying in the trade - "Basements are all wet", and he was right. After finding rust on my precious hand tools, I finally bit the bullet and bought an inexpensive low-temperature dehumidifier. My reasoning is that while I can oil up my hand tools and the tops of the surfaces of my stationary power tools, there's a lot of inaccessible iron in those machines, and corrosion is not helpful in maintaining the life of the tool.

For the $100 it cost me for the dehumdifier (with a humidistat automatic on/off control - it maintains 50% R.H. during the spring/summer/fall) and the $5 in electricity per month it costs to run it, I figure I've saved myself many hundreds in time spent cleaning off corrosion and preventing corrosion-related problems.

Unless your shop is under an open-air shed, it's really worthwhile to buy one of these - your tools will thank you, and your wood will be ready to use with no humidity-change caused dimensional problems while you work.

[jeremy levine]

Lots of good advice here
http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/rust/rust.html

[Johnny Kleso]

I live in Georgia and its humid all the time..

What ever you do dont sweat on your TS
Mine will rust in a few hours I think :)

I use Bostick Top Coat or one of those other products, after about three or four coatings it dosen't seem to rust as bad as when it was new..

This will also work on tools you dont used much..

My main go to oil is WD-40 I buy it at Lowes for $9.99 a Gal. and use it in a plastic spray bottle for all the hand tools.. Top Coat is for the heavy iron..

Mildew Cleaner spray bottles (TileX) are pretty high quality and I recylce them some times..

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Get a Dehumidifier.
I have a wet cellar and garage and I have to run two all the time.

Do NOT get Aprilaire unless you are having an HVAC company install it and the HVAC company is offering you a waranty - in writing. 'Cause Aprilaire's warranty is "Oh Well."

[Don Pierson]

If your shop area has an air conditioner...turn it on. When the humid air hits the cold AC coils the moisture will fall out. This trick works in a car that has fogged up on the inside and the old diesel submarines did this to dry out the electronics.

[Bill Satko]

Jim, the key to describing where you live in Washington (especially when talking about climate) is Eastern Washington vs Western Washington. A third area could be "the coast". I will assume you live in Western Washington as I do. My shop is really an attached garage to our house. I do not have a humidifier and I do not have a problem with rust, but I do take preventive measures by waxing and oiling (Camellia oil). I always felt that if I lived in the Southeast I would need a humidifier but I never spent a lot of time waxing or oiling here to move in that direction.

[Joe Pelonio]

I have an 12,000 btu A/C that I can run on "dry only" with no cooling
which works fine for me.

[Greg Crawford]

Boeshield T-9 has been great here in Houston, the city built on a swamp.

[Jim Koepke]

Jim, the key to describing where you live in Washington (especially when talking about climate) is Eastern Washington vs Western Washington. A third area could be "the coast". I will assume you live in Western Washington as I do. My shop is really an attached garage to our house. I do not have a humidifier and I do not have a problem with rust, but I do take preventive measures by waxing and oiling (Camellia oil). I always felt that if I lived in the Southeast I would need a humidifier but I never spent a lot of time waxing or oiling here to move in that direction.

We are in south west Washington. Near the Columbia River and west of Longview.

I think I will try the dehumidifier as there is too much iron in my shop to spend all my time on applying wax or oil. I also store wood there, so maybe it will help it to stay stable.

Thanks for all the responses.

jim

[John Gornall]

If your shop is closed and sealed with high humidity air and then the temperature drops the air will supersaturate and water will settle on surfaces - sort of rain on a small scale. If you were to touch a tool it wouldn't feel wet but there is water there. The solution is ventilation so you always have fresh air with a humidity below 100%. Fresh air outdoors even during a heavy rain is usually 90% or less. So if you keep this fresh air flowing through your shop without it being sealed in and changing temperature you won't have condensation on the tool surfaces. I have flow through ventilation in my shop and never have rust. My shop is a few yards from the sea on an island off the west coast of Canada - the southeasters hit hard all winter.

I sold a lathe recently and kept in my basement for a month before it was picked up. After 4 years in my shop with no rust it was covered with surface rust after only a month in an unventilated room.

[David Keller NC]

We are in south west Washington. Near the Columbia River and west of Longview.

I think I will try the dehumidifier as there is too much iron in my shop to spend all my time on applying wax or oil. I also store wood there, so maybe it will help it to stay stable.

Thanks for all the responses.

jim

Jim - When you go to get a dehumidifier, I'd advise getting a "low temperature" model. They cost about the same at the Home Despot, but the low-temp models include a defrost timer in the unit that will prevent the evaporator from icing up. This is generally a problem in high humidities (say, above 70%) and a temperature below about 70 degrees. Also, I'd recommend one that can be attached to a drain hose - it's a real drag to have to remember to empty the bucket every couple of days.

Regarding where to set it - in my experience, you will start to get rust spots at a relative humidity of over 60% and a temp above 65 F on un-coated iron or steel. If the steel is oiled, you can get away with up to 75% R.H., and any corrosion will be a good deal slower than non-oiled parts. My personal preference is as you noted; I don't have the time to pick through my table saw and jointer and oil all of the hidden parts, so I just keep the set point on the de-humidifier at 55%, and the automated control does the rest.

[Jim Koepke]

Jim - When you go to get a dehumidifier, I'd advise getting a "low temperature" model. They cost about the same at the Home Despot, but the low-temp models include a defrost timer in the unit that will prevent the evaporator from icing up. This is generally a problem in high humidities (say, above 70%) and a temperature below about 70 degrees. Also, I'd recommend one that can be attached to a drain hose - it's a real drag to have to remember to empty the bucket every couple of days.

Regarding where to set it - in my experience, you will start to get rust spots at a relative humidity of over 60% and a temp above 65 F on un-coated iron or steel. If the steel is oiled, you can get away with up to 75% R.H., and any corrosion will be a good deal slower than non-oiled parts. My personal preference is as you noted; I don't have the time to pick through my table saw and jointer and oil all of the hidden parts, so I just keep the set point on the de-humidifier at 55%, and the automated control does the rest.

Thanks for the information Dave.
I did get the low temp model and it does have a hose coupling. I will likely run without the hose at first just to see how much water is taken out of the air.

jim

[lowell holmes]

I coat my tools (Galveston County, Texas) with Johnson's wax. I even use it on my saw blades (including my band saw). It keeps my iron tops and hand planes clean of rust.

[Mike K Wenzloff]

Welcome to the neighbrhood, Jim!

A friend has a dehumidifier unit in his (generally) unconditioned shop. Make sure to have a few 5 gallon buckets to swap out as they fill.

It doesn't take much heat to keep the humidity at bay. I didn't see whether this is an attached structure to your house or not. If so, what I did here was to tap into the upstairs forced air feed with an insulated 6" pipe and let it dump into the shop. I monitored the humidity for a couple seasonal cycles. More than acceptable. And the little bit of heat was welcome in the fall and winter.

Again, wlecom to the NW.

Take care, Mike

[Jim Koepke]

Welcome to the neighbrhood, Jim!

A friend has a dehumidifier unit in his (generally) unconditioned shop. Make sure to have a few 5 gallon buckets to swap out as they fill.

It doesn't take much heat to keep the humidity at bay. I didn't see whether this is an attached structure to your house or not.
Again, wlecom to the NW.

Take care, Mike

Thanks Mike,
The shop is a detached garage. Been thinking of the options to get a little warmth in there. The cold does not bother me much once I get to working.
After two days, the water bucket was full and the humidity only dropped from 75 to 60%. I am not sure if that is enough. The tools with a patina on them do not seem to suffer as bad as tools with clean metal. Maybe a bit of gun blueing would be of help to seal the surfaces.

jim